Do you think it's better to be a professional at one thing or an amateur at many things?

Question

Programming

What is your position on what is better: to know one language at the professional level or to know several, but at the amateur level?
The fact is that I have never worked in a team and, as they say, I am my own director. I come up with the design myself, I do the typesetting myself, I do the backend and frontend myself, I write the texts myself and I translate them myself. And the further I go, the more often I think it's better. Can you still try to work in a team, share responsibilities with someone? Or is my current situation the other way around?

Answer 1

A professional in many ways.

Answer 2

Full-stack developer - sounds proud)
However, many technologies are so complex that there is not enough time to cover them all at an expert level. Therefore, from my point of view, a certain pyramid is optimal: at the top is a selected narrowly focused stack of technologies, at the second stage - related technologies that are highly desirable to know (for example, php \ mysql in case the frontend is the top), and in the foundation there can be everything the rest, down to "played around with Unity over the weekend, check it out."

Answer 3

If I'm not mistaken, there is such a national proverb:
Know everything about one thing and one thing about everything.
PS: Naturally, here we are talking about knowledge available to a person, because a person cannot know absolutely everything.
UPD.: (04/14/2014) Here it is! I suddenly came across this phrase on the Internet:
Henry Peter Broom (British statesman and orator)

Answer 4

The cost of a specialist is determined by the area in which he knows the most.
Regardless of how many areas he knows.
The one who knows only vershoks is an enikey man.

Answer 5

This issue is worthy of being brought up for discussion at the next meeting of the UN Assembly.
If you have the opportunity to work in a large company with a good division of labor (which involves working on a COMPLEX computational task such as analyzing some denormalized data and providing analytical reports), then one direction is probably possible. Because form-interfaces will not allow analytics to rivet resources.
If the company is small + the task is not particularly difficult, then the work is not particularly divided - you will still intersect.
I tell you, if you are a generalist (which does not at all mean the ability to bake pies by you), then you are more valuable in the labor market, which means you can easily reorganize.
PS IMHO Of course, it's better to be an expert in one thing and acquire experience in related fields, but one professional direction will crush with monotony in a year. Be an engineer.

Answer 6

>share responsibilities with someone
And with whom would you like to share responsibilities: with a professional specialist or with an amateur generalist. I think the situation should be symmetrical.

Answer 7

Working in a team allows you to solve more complex and voluminous tasks in less time.